The most helpful favorable review

The most helpful critical review

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 starsTerrific Broadway recording and score
If you like old-fashioned glitzy musicals, this one is for you. I've seen the show twice and will try to see it again before it closes. The music and lyrics are smart and classy and given a first-rate production on this CD. Marc Shaiman who has arranged for Harry Connick keeps the tunes coming in the style of Sinatra or Dean Martin and the album is very pleasant to listen...

3.0 out of 5 starsLots of Glitz
I really wanted to like the cast album for Catch Me If You Can. I haven't seen the show, beyond little previews on YouTube and the Tonys, but I can tell the songs rely on lively (and leggy) choreography. The songs certainly don't stand on their own. The lyrics, by Hairspray's Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, have very little of the cynic wit that makes Hairspray a...

If you like old-fashioned glitzy musicals, this one is for you. I've seen the show twice and will try to see it again before it closes. The music and lyrics are smart and classy and given a first-rate production on this CD. Marc Shaiman who has arranged for Harry Connick keeps the tunes coming in the style of Sinatra or Dean Martin and the album is very pleasant to listen to. Maybe Connick will record a few of these tunes and make them his own. A few of these songs were sent out on a preview CD with a flyer for the show. They sounded good on the preview CD but they have been re-recorded with a full orchestra and what a difference. They pop! The cast is terrific. This is going to sound like heresy but I found Book Of Mormon to be wildly overrated. No so with one, which for some reason the critics ignored, I guess because it was not the flavor of the month. See the show.

We (my husband, my son and his wife) saw Catch Me If You Can several hours after seeing The Book Of Mormon. While Mormon was certainly pleasurable, especially for its shock value, we all agreed that Catch Me was the better show. Truly an old-fashioned musical, something rarely seen on Broadway these days outside revivals. My son and his wife are HUGE Southpark fans and they felt the same way we old farts did.Don't miss this show if you're in NYC!!

This CD is for ALL Broadway enthusiasts. One of the best recordings in recent memory from some of the best performances you could find on Broadway this season. Hope you have the opportunity to enjoy this one!

I love broadway musicals, but it's not everyday that you can find a cast recording album that you enjoy thoroughly, in a sense that every song is so wonderful to listen to. To me, Catch Me If You Can is this kind of rare occurrence, and thus I highly recommend it. I enjoy listening to every single song on this album.

When I saw the show, I knew that I had to get the album. The scores are beautiful and provide a good number of variety. You have the energetic songs such as "Live in Living Colors," "Jet Set," and "Doctor's Orders." And then you have slow and touching songs such as "Seven Wonders" and "Fly Fly Away." Then amazingly, there are songs that have a versatile feel to them, such as "Someone Else's Skin," which starts beautifully soft and slow and turns into sort of a contemporary fast song. "Goodbye," which is sang beautifully, provides an old-fashioned grand broadway tone, but then also follows a fast-tempo orchestration, and it's a very unique and wonderful mix. Most importantly, no matter what kind of songs, fast or slow, these songs are very catchy, they get stuck in your mind easily, in a good way of course, and you will find yourself singing or humming them.

The cast's performance (and voices) for this production is fantastic. Aaron Tveit sings with perfect enunciation, I could understand and follow the lyrics (and pretty much the plot) very well. He has great control of power when he sings, and really carries out the songs beautifully. I was absolutely blown away with his performance and portrayal of Frank Abagnale, Jr., and his recording on this album is flawless, as he is in live performance. Norbert Leo Butz has a great voice that can be soft and raspy at times, such as the comical number "Don't Break the Rules." The entire cast is extremely talented, and this album does not disappoint.

I have albums for many classic musicals, but for many of them I find that I have to sometimes skip a song here and there, but I never have to skip any songs when I listen to this album. Every song is absolutely amazing, and I love this album as much as I love the show itself. This is what a broadway musical should be like! Highly highly recommended for anyone who enjoys good music!

We saw Catch Me If You Can on Broadway last week (which was magnificent), and loved the music so much we picked up this CD. The producers of the CD did an outstanding job of not just capturing the extraordinarily high quality of the music as it was presented on stage, but their detail extends to giving you every lyric, identifying which character and chorus that delivered it, in the included CD booklet. I can't recommend the CD (or the show!) highly enough.

I really wanted to like the cast album for Catch Me If You Can. I haven't seen the show, beyond little previews on YouTube and the Tonys, but I can tell the songs rely on lively (and leggy) choreography. The songs certainly don't stand on their own. The lyrics, by Hairspray's Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, have very little of the cynic wit that makes Hairspray a standout. This music is slick with its mid-century non-rock pastiches: Frankie Sinatra big band, Laurence Welk family music, even some film-noir smoky detective melody. It's well orchestrated, perhaps too much so. Much of the sentiment feels closer to lounge lizard schmaltz. Even Kerry Butler's solo is repetitive. The most enjoyable song for me is Little Boy, Be A Man - a swaggering venting (boasting?) of whose father was worse - Detective Carl's or Frank Sr.'s? I also like the clothing-makes-the-man song The Pinstripes Are All That They See, delivered with bad-boy confidence by Tom Wopat. The CD is not a bad listen, and I'm sure it's a great souvenir of the stage show, but I can't help feeling that Shaiman is capable of better.

My partner and I saw CATCH ME IF YOU CAN in March of 2011, while it was in its preview stages. We knew a little bit about the show as we had read about and seen clips of the pre-Broadway tryout in Seattle, but had mixed feelings on it. My partner had never seen the 2002 movie, but I absolutely loved it and while I was still a little concerned that yet ANOTHER movie was being made into a stage show, we both decided to give it a chance.

Maybe it was because my expectations were average, but the show well exceeded my expectations and I fell in love with it! It was truly energetic and completely classic with a truly strong score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, whom, I felt, still hit it out of the park in the same vein they did with HAIRSPRAY. The cast was strong with Aaron Tveit leading the show with pure charm and an absolutely killer singing voice but the show was definitely stolen by Norbert Leo Butz, who ended up winning the Tony for Best Actor while Tveit wasn't even nominated (tough year). Mr. Butz' playing this role had me concerned at first as he didn't fit any perception of which I envisioned Carl Hanratty (thanks to Tom Hanks), plus I had always been mixed by him as a performer. However, he flat out stole the show. While you may not be impressed listening to him on the recording, his performance benefited from seeing him live as he was the true definition of the "scene-stealing, character actor". His "Don't Break the Rules" will probably become one of those numbers for the ages thanks to his performance filled with what I call "sloppy but polished" dancing and also a lot of his best bits came from the book which you obviously don't get to hear on the recording but I support his Tony win (but I wouldn't have minded him being placed in Featured to win there so that Aaron could have taken his spot in Lead).

After seeing the show, I was convinced that it was going to give The Book of Mormon a run for its money as the reviews hadn't come out yet, but then they did and it got relatively mixed to even negative reviews and I was honestly floored because I thought the show as not only fun, but had a great score, solid book (I will admit that it wasn't the best book ever written for the theatre), a wonderful cast, and not to mention, the orchestrations were absolutely stellar and it felt like a show straight out of a big band concert from the 50s/60s at times and even the orchestrations were said to be "too overtly done", which I thought was complete rubbish as the show felt like a "classic".

When the show managed to get nominated for Best Musical at the Tonys, I was stunned because of its reviews and lack of precursor attention plus most people reacted negatively to that and it was also surprising as it missed out on Director, Book, Score, and nominations for Tveit, Tom Wopat, and Kerry Butler (though I personally would not have nominated Kerry Butler, who does have a LOVELY song but her acting felt forced and fake to me).

One major issue I did have with the show is that I HATED the choreography and it was done by the normally strong Jerry Mitchell, and also when you watch it on clips, the show does seem to feel empty and bland at times, but LIVE it was a true joy and frankly, I think the show's score being snubbed was highway robbery as I wouldn't have minded it beating Book of Mormon in that category.

I would do a best track listing but frankly I love the whole score, though I feel the weakest songs are: The Pinstripes Are All They See, Someone Else's Skin, The Man Inside the Clues....surprisingly, the score in Act Two is actually a lot stronger and the show is just as, if not, more intriguing which is rare in the theatre.

This is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time.The music is great. The singing is amazing.It throws back to all those great old musicals, and jazz of that era, but still manages to be fresh and modern.This is a must have for any Broadway fan.Norbert Leo Butz is in it and he WON A TONY for this!What more can you say.

Best. Broadway. Score I've heard in a long time. Since Next to Normal I would say. It has a 60's feel to it, it's a tribute to the music of that time, as Hairspray was. We can feel the love of the composer for this type of music through every single song! There's not a song I wouldn't listen, they're all great, and the cast is just perfect. Now, I can say Shaiman and Wittman are the best pair of composers and writers of today's musicals. To me? A must buy!